place

Etymology 1

From Middle English place, conflation of Old English plæse, plætse, plæċe (“place, an open space, street”) and Old French place (“place, an open space”), both from Latin platea (“plaza, wide street”), from Ancient Greek πλατεῖα (plateîa), shortening of πλατεῖα ὁδός (plateîa hodós, “broad way”), from Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“to spread”), extended form of *pleh₂- (“flat”). Displaced native Old English stōw, stede, and -ern. Compare also English pleck (“plot of ground”), West Frisian plak (“place, spot, location”), Dutch plek (“place, spot, patch”). Doublet of piatza, piazza, and plaza.

noun

1. (physical) An area; somewhere within an area.
   1. An open space, particularly a city square, market square, or courtyard.
   2. (often in street names or addresses) A street, sometimes but not always surrounding a public place, square, or plaza of the same name.
      They live at Westminster Place.
   3. An inhabited area: a village, town, or city.
   4. Any area of the earth: a region.
      He is going back to his native place on vacation.
   5. The area one occupies, particularly somewhere to sit.
      We asked the restaurant to give us a table with three places.
   6. The area where one lives: one's home, formerly (chiefly) country estates and farms.
      Do you want to come over to my place later?
   7. An area of the body, especially the skin.
      Which place hurts the most?
   8. (euphemistic slang) An area to urinate and defecate: an outhouse or lavatory.
      Place,... (2) a jakes, or house of ease. 1901, John Stephen Farmer et al., Slang and Its Analogues Past and Present, volume V, page 220
      ‘I guess I'll take this opportunity to go to the place’... ‘She means the little girls room.’ 1951, William Styron, chapter II, in Lie Down in Darkness, page 59
   9. (obsolete) An area to fight: a battlefield or the contested ground in a battle.
2. A location or position in space.
   When you're well enough off so's you don't have to fret about anything but your heft or your diseases you begin to get queer, I suppose. And the queerer the cure for those ailings the bigger the attraction. A place like the Right Livers' Rest was bound to draw freaks, same as molasses draws flies. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 5, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
   By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country. 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 5, in Death on the Centre Court
3. A particular location in a book or document, particularly the current location of a reader.
4. (obsolete) A passage or extract from a book or document.
5. (obsolete, rhetoric) A topic.
6. A state of mind.
   I'm in a strange place at the moment.
7. (chess, obsolete) A chess position; a square of the chessboard.
8. (social) A responsibility or position in an organization.
   1. A role or purpose; a station.
      It is really not my place to say what is right and wrong in this case.
      The [Washington] Post's proprietor through those turbulent [Watergate] days, Katharine Graham, held a double place in Washington’s hierarchy: at once regal Georgetown hostess and scrappy newshound, ready to hold the establishment to account. 2013-08-10, Lexington, “Keeping the mighty honest”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8848
   2. The position of a contestant in a competition.
      We thought we would win but only ended up in fourth place.
   3. (horse-racing) The position of first, second, or third at the finish, especially the second position.
      to win a bet on a horse for place
   4. The position as a member of a sports team.
      He lost his place in the national team.
9. (obsolete) A fortified position: a fortress, citadel, or walled town.
10. Numerically, the column counting a certain quantity.
    three decimal places;  the hundreds place
11. Ordinal relation; position in the order of proceeding.
    That's what I said in the first place!
    a. 1788, Mather Byles, quoted in The Life of James Otis by William Tudor In the first place, I do not understand politics; in the second place, you all do, every man and mother's son of you; in the third place, you have politics all the week, pray let one day in the seven be devoted to religion […]
12. Reception; effect; implying the making room for.

Etymology 2

From Middle English placen, from the noun (see above).

verb

1. (transitive) To put (an object or person) in a specific location.
   Meanwhile Nanny Broome was recovering from her initial panic and seemed anxious to make up for any kudos she might have lost, by exerting her personality to the utmost. She took the policeman's helmet and placed it on a chair, and unfolded his tunic to shake it and fold it up again for him. 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 19, in The China Governess
   Similar studies of rats have employed four different intracranial resorbable, slow sustained release systems— […]. Such a slow-release device containing angiogenic factors could be placed on the pia mater covering the cerebral cortex and tested in persons with senile dementia in long term studies. 2013 May-June, Charles T. Ambrose, “Alzheimer’s Disease”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 200
   He placed the glass on the table.
2. (intransitive) To earn a given spot in a competition.
   The Cowboys placed third in the league.
   1. (intransitive, motor racing) To finish second, especially of horses or dogs.
      In the third race: Aces Up won, paying eight dollars; Blarney Stone placed, paying three dollars; and Cinnamon showed, paying five dollars.
3. (transitive, passive) To rank at (a certain position, often followed by an ordinal) as in a horse race.
   Run Ragged was placed fourth in the race.
4. (transitive) To remember where and when (an object or person) has been previously encountered.
   I've seen him before, but I can't quite place where.
5. (transitive) To sing (a note) with the correct pitch.
6. (transitive) To arrange for or to make (a bet).
   I placed ten dollars on the Lakers beating the Bulls.
7. (transitive) To establish a call (connection by telephone or similar).
   We were all focused intently on the triangular conference call speaker in the middle of the table. President Trump's communications team was placing a call to President Volodymyr Zelenksy of Ukraine, and we were here to listen. 2021, Alexander S. Vindman, “Impeachable Offense”, in Here, Right Matters: An American Story, HarperCollins, →OCLC
8. (transitive) To recruit or match an appropriate person for a job, or a home for an animal for adoption, etc.
   They phoned hoping to place her in the management team.
9. (sports, transitive) To place-kick (a goal).